The Labor Party

Labor has taken over $75 million in corporate donations since 2012.

This money has come from some of our most powerful businesses, like coal seam gas giant, Santos and Crown Casino, and most influential industries, like property development, professional lobbyists and coal and gas companies. These companies donate for a reason: favourable policy decisions. While the major parties continue to take money from big corporate interests, they will never be completely focused on what is good for Australian communities.

These are the industries seeking to influence the policy decisions of the Labor party:

Category Value
Banking and Finance Industry 27,315,153
Media and Communications 7,409,258
Private Health Industry 6,713,718
Developers and Property Industry 6,448,523
Energy and Resource Companies 5,585,626
Government Contractors 5,398,379
Hotels Clubs and Alcohol 5,153,107
Consultancies and Law Firms 4,768,044
Lobbying Firms 2,497,282
Retail and Services Sector 2,493,178

Category Value
Banking and Finance Industry 27,315,153
Media and Communications 7,409,258
Private Health Industry 6,713,718
Developers and Property Industry 6,448,523
Energy and Resource Companies 5,585,626
Government Contractors 5,398,379
Hotels Clubs and Alcohol 5,153,107
Consultancies and Law Firms 4,768,044
Lobbying Firms 2,497,282
Retail and Services Sector 2,493,178

Cumulative totals to Labor between FY2012-13 – FY2019-20 (all ALP state and federal)

And there’s a lot we know nothing about

The vast majority of money received by the Labor party is “undisclosed donations” – Dark Money: secret money from untraceable sources which the party is able to avoid reporting on.

The three big problems with dark money.

  1. Loopholes in our donations laws allow the major parties to claim money received as “other receipts”, because it isn’t a ‘gift’, it is a contractual exchange such as a $10,000 a head ‘business lunch’ with lobbyists and industry.
  2. Major parties employ sneaky tactics to hide the source of donations – like using a political front group (like the 1973 Foundation) to host fundraising events. The corporate donor pays the front group and the front group then pays the political party to “wash the donations” and hide the influential donor.
  3. Our lax donation laws allow donors to split donations between state and federal entities below the $13,500 donation cap. That means over $100,000 can be donated each year without disclosure. If it’s below the disclosure limit, then the AEC has no legal power to investigate it.

All of these tactics are employed to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to work out where the money – money that’s intended to influence political decisions – came from.

Learn more about Dark Money

Labor’s top corporate donors since 2012:

Cumulative totals to Labor between FY2012-13 – FY2019-20 (all ALP state and federal). Explore and filter the raw AEC data ›